Panza, which replaced Cibo in a small space just off the busiest blocks of Hanover Street, strikes a nice balance between red-sauce expectations, a bit of cheffery, and prices you can live with. No one looking for good old Italian-American food will be disappointed, and those who wander off that part of the menu will often be rewarded.

We began quite well with chewy, crusty Italian bread and fruity olive oil. On the wild side of appetizers, how Italian is "Wild Mushroom and Goat Cheese Spring Roll" ($7)? At least a bit, I suppose, if you think of it as savory cannoli, with honeyed sweet sauce, to boot. Most bites were terrific, though some had too much crispy shell and tasted like fried dough (actually, that's terrific in its own way). It comes with salad, which is a pleasant bonus, because most entrées are low on greens.

I've long argued that any French or Italian menu could be improved by the simple addition of spare ribs, but the spare-ribs appetizer ($9) isn't exactly what I had in mind. The three large, meaty ribs are neither baked nor barbecued but slow braised, and are very much done in the Boston style: falling off the bone with a sweet "Sicilian BBQ" sauce. An appetizer special of two seared sea scallops ($9) was fantastic, though the sweet-and-sour fennel relish underneath was cold, which was surprising and initially off-putting.

Our only weak appetizer was a small order of fried calamari ($7/small; $9/large), since some of the rings were not cooked through. Otherwise, it was a good fry job, with some cherry pepper rings and onions fried in. The mayonnaise and cherry peppers sauce, to tame the heat and bring out the flavor, was a clever touch, as we've come to associate pickled cherry peppers with fried squid. You get a large portion of rings, too, which is great. I didn't see the large size, but I suspect it could be split easily by four people.

Tagliatelle with shrimp and basil ($16), a red-sauce special and the stunner among our main dishes, had a neat game-changing gimmick: the shrimp were grilled. Turns out, this gives them an entirely different and more complementary flavor with tomato. The basil was impressively aromatic for April, and the rest of the dish was wide ribbons of fresh spinach pasta with the ineffable chew of the real thing.

Even a familiar linguine alla pescatore ($18) made from dried pasta was served al dente — not half-cooked as in Italy, but with a little uncooked core, as I like it. The catch, then, is to make sure that the seafood also isn't overcooked, which the chefs at Panza did very well. You can have this dish with red sauce, white sauce, or fra diavolo (red with pepper). We enjoyed the white-sauce version, which has garlic.

Johnnie's on the Side This large space has always housed attractive restaurants, despite violating two of Nadeau's laws: Eateth Not Within 1000 Cubits of a Government Institution; and Ditto for Sports Stadia.

Bina Osteria Bina Osteria may be the last luxury restaurant to open in Boston for a long time — or at least the last that isn't situated in a boutique hotel.

Bom de Boca Grill Craving steak but counting your pennies? If so, churrascarias (Brazilian grilled-meat restaurants) offer some of the best deals around.

Aspire An upscale restaurant in an upscale hotel is disadvantaged in ways that give the advantage to us.

Tory Row Matthew Curtis and Christopher A. Lutes, perfect-pitch masters of minimalism at Miracle of Science, Cambridge 1, Middlesex Lounge, and Audubon Circle, have finally opened a restaurant with a few flaws.

Review: Chez Pascal Everything about Chez Pascal, beginning with Monday Market Menus and ending with a gallery show for a Rhody painter, emphasizes co-owners Matt and Kristin Gennuso's support for local talent, be it farmers or artists.

Ronnarong For more than 10 years, the Great Thai Chef held forth in Somerville's Union Square.

REVIEW: BONCHON | August 10, 2012 What am I doing in this basement in Harvard Square, reviewing the second location of a multi-national franchise chain?

REVIEW: CARMELINA'S | July 25, 2012 After a good run with "Italian tapas" under the name Damiano (a play on the given name of chef-owner Damien "Domenic" DiPaola), this space has been rechristened as Carmelina's — after the chef's mother and his first restaurant, opened when he was an undergraduate in Western Mass — and the menu reconfigured to feature more entrées.

REVIEW: TONIC | July 06, 2012 Bad restaurant idea number 16: let's do a neighborhood bar-bistro where there already is one.

REVIEW: HAPPY’S BAR AND KITCHEN | June 20, 2012 In a year of bad restaurant ideas, one of the better bets is to have a successful fancy-food chef try a downscale restaurant.